Today is the 89th birth anniversary artist Patua Quamrul Hassan (1921-1988), one of the three master painters of the country, who is known for his contributions in retrieving our folk and traditional elements through his art works.
Quamrul Hassan combined traditional and modern methods in his paintings and thus came to be known as ‘Patua Quamrul Hassan’. His works delineated basically the rural Bangla and its people.
But the socially conscious artist created some wonderful art works during the country’s war of independence in 1971, famine in 1974, during military takeover in 1975 and again in early 1980s that always inspire people to fight against the odds and social injustice.
Quamrul Hassan received several awards and honours for his contributions to art, including the President’s Gold Medal (1965), the Comilla Foundation Gold Medal (1977), the Independence Day Award (1979), Bangladesh Charu Shilpi Sangsad Honour (1984) and Kazi Mahbubullah Trust Gold Medal (1987).
He was made a Fellow of Bangla Academy in 1985. The government of Yugoslavia (1985) and the government of Bangladesh (1986) issued commemorative stamps using his paintings Tin Kanya and Naior respectively.
Besides, he designed the monograms of Bangladesh government, Bangladesh Bank, Freedom Fighters’ Welfare Trust, Parjatan Corporation and Biman Bangladesh Airlines.
Born on 2 December, 1921, in Kolkata, Quamrul Hassan graduated in Fine Arts from the Government Institute of Arts (now, College of Arts and Crafts, Kolkata) in 1947.
Like many Bengali Muslims, he was involved in the Pakistan movement and trained the young boys and girls who belonged to the Mukul Fauj. After partition, Quamrul Hassan came to Dhaka and, in collaboration with Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin, established the then Dacca Art College (at present, the Faculty of Fine Arts of Dhaka University) in 1948 and taught at the same institute till 1960.
The East Pakistan Small and Cottage Industries Corporation was established under the leadership of Quamrul Hassan in 1960, and he worked there as Director of the Design Centre till his retirement in 1978. After his retirement, Hassan worked as a free-lance artist.
Always politically active, Quamrul Hassan was involved in the non-cooperation movement. He also took part in the War of Independence, serving as the Director of the Art Division of the Information and Radio Department of the Bangladesh Government in exile. During this time he designed a poster depicting a ferocious-looking Aga Mohammad Yahya Khan, the military president of Pakistan. The caption of the poster was, ‘These animals have to be killed’.
While presiding over a session of the Second National Poetry Festival held on the Dhaka University campus on 2 February 1988, he drew a sketch of a snake, satirising Lieutenant General Hussain Muhammad Ershad, the army general who became president of Bangladesh through a military coup. Hassan had barely completed the sketch when he suffered a massive heart attack. Subsequently, he died.
Teachers and students of Patua Quamrul Hassan Art School will place wraths at his graveyard in Dhaka University campus at 9:00 in the morning.
